THE EXPULSION OF PAGANISM IN SWEDEN.
If the reader should ever happen to visit Lagga, a parish in the south-west of Sweden, the people will point out to him an enormously large stone which a giant once threw at a church, and in which the marks of his strong fingers are still discernible. It was, Afzelius says, a common practice with giants in Sweden to hurl stones at the churches, but they never hit them. Moreover, the sound of the church bell was very hateful to them. Near Lagga is a mountain celebrated as the former domicile of a giant, who lived there until the time of the Reformation, when the church of the place was provided with bells. One morning the dejected giant addressed a peasant from Lagga, whose name was Jacob, and who happened to be at the foot of the mountain. "Jacob!" said the giant in a subdued tone of voice, "come in, Jacob, and eat of my stew!"
But Jacob, alarmed at the kind invitation, replied rather hesitatingly: "Sir, if you have more stew than you can consume, you had better keep the rest for to-morrow."
Upon this sensible advice, the dejected giant complained: "I cannot stay here even till to-morrow! I am compelled to leave this place because of the constant bell-ringing, which is quite insupportable!"
Whereupon Jacob, getting a little courage, asked him: "And when do you intend to come back again?"
The dejected giant, hearing himself thus questioned, ejaculated whiningly: "Come back again? Oh! certainly not until the mount has become the bottom of the sea, and the sea itself arable and fertile land; if this should ever happen, then I may perhaps come back again."
